COM0015 Blog #4 Out of the box, into the cell

When I began the social media certificate at Algonquin College learning to use new tools was expected. What I did not expect was to fall back on a very handy (and powerful) tool – the spreadsheet. This tool has been in my toolbox for years and I didn’t expect it would be so useful as a building block for monitoring and measuring my social media platforms.

I started off with a simple list using data from a Facebook page I administer.  I created columns for:

• Date
• Categories
• Subcategories
• Target
• Calls to Action
• Posts
• Impressions
• Comments (replies)
• Likes (favorites)
• Shares (retweets)
• Clicks
• Total Engagement
• Total Reach

The data for each of the above can be imported from Facebook Insights, as an example. Without too much thought, I can see what content was most effective but simply sorting my data by descending order.

Based on this, I can see a huge increase on October 29. On this day, a slide show was posted. Consistently, over the life of this page, slide shows have boosted engagement.

Once the top content is identified, it can be compared to trends upward or downward over a certain period of time. Did this trend result in a change in ROI – did more participants enrol at the next registration?

This is just a very simplistic example of how an old tool can be used to keep things new.

COM0015 Assignment 5 “Event Participation”

Recently I attended a virtual career fair. “The Success Spotlight” was offered by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). The CRA prides itself on being one of Canada’s top 100 employers because it offers:

• meaningful career opportunities
• room for advancement
• work-life balance
• career opportunities across Canada.

I chose to attend this event for several reasons; first, to satisfy my course requirement. Second, I am an instructor in the School of Business at College of the North Atlantic and wondered if this event would be relevant to my students. Since the CRA is hosting this event several times over a two weeks, I can recommend that my students attend one of the sessions.  Last, because I teach online I enjoy exploring different tools such as a live event.

Here’s a screen capture of me attending the event which was hosted by two CRA employees:

CRA Career Fair October 2016

I was disappointed that I could not see a complete list of attendees.  It felt like I was the only one attending, because I could only see my name. It wasn’t until the question and answer session at the end that I realized others were there.  Feeling I was alone in the session, I didn’t ask questions until the end.  I became more interactive with both the hosts and building on some of the questions that other participants asked in the Q and A.

My questions:

1. Why the need for a virtual job fair as opposed to a traditional job fair and do you offer both formats?
2. In your pool of applicants, do you feel there are key elements missing; i.e. communication skills? hard skills?
3. How does the CRA use social media in recruiting; specifically, LinkedIn?

I like the idea of using a virtual career fair.  I like that it’s real time. However, it is still two talking heads. Without seeing a list of candidates,  it made for an awkward setting. The slides could be more dynamic. There could be polls and other ways to engage the audience.

Yes, I will definitely attend a similar event. I am registered for a blended learning webinar session from the Online Learning Consortium on October 5.

 

There are still more sessions offered throughout October, if you are interested in attending, click here CRA Career Fair Registration

COM0015 Comments to Other’s Posts

Kelly Taylor-Hulan | September 22, 2016 at 9:16 am

It is truly commendable that even in your pain you can consider the thoughts and feelings of others when you say “…when we need to tackle an emotionally difficult situation that others can be hurt, too. You must remember to choose your time, words and audience carefully.” Do you find the act of writing about it therapeutic?

Kelly Taylor-Hulan | September 22, 2016 at 9:13 am

What is GCConnex? Is that an in-house program? Also, I am wondering about your mentor? What type of work does she do? Is she a marketing expert?

COM0015 Blog Post#3 Professional Networking

One of the hardest things I find to do for this course is the heading of each new post. I want to stick to the mundane – course number, title of assignment – so that my professor can find me here. However, I would much prefer a catchier title that draws people in:

Kelly Goes Pro!

Networking – is it worth the work?

3 P’s for professional networking – plan, post, purge 

The three areas I would like to work on as I pursue a more professional network are:

Writing skills – is it really ok to be humourous? I do want folks to read my posts.

Video – make use of short videos – that are relevant to my blog. In my WalksAlot Blog, I like to use DIY style videos that I have recorded on my walks. Check out WalksALot Blog

LinkedIn – I think this is a must and I have a ways to go as you can see:

Hope to connect with you soon!

COM0015/Post2 Strong & Weak Organizations

I believe Canadian Tire has an impressive social media presence. The red triangle and green maple leaf – so iconic in Canada – is well placed.  The “look” on both Twitter and Facebook are the same – faded red images of Canadiana.

One of the things I look for in a strong social media presence is up-to-date postings. If I follow someone on Twitter and it’s been about four days since they tweeted, I feel like they’re not “listening”.  On Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram Canadian Tire is quite active:

Notice in the Instagram image above, that it links the follower right back to the company’s website – which is where you can do your shopping and check what is in stock in your own hometown.

I’m not sure that Memorial University is doing a great job with its social media. It has been three days since they posted anything on their Facebook page.  Three days in September?? Wow, isn’t this the busiest time of year with lots of great orientation events to photograph?  I have messaged the university via Facebook and have not received a response.  This is the week you send new students to your Facebook page but that activity doesn’t seem to be happening:

To contact Memorial, I feel I have to go the old-fashioned route of email.  Their population is quite young, I would think email may be disappointing to them.

COM0015/Post 1 – Tools & Sources

My favourite social media listening/monitoring tool is by far Facebook Insights. It is extremely user-friendly.  After setting up my first ever Facebook page to promote female baseball in my hometown, the Insights tab was immediately available to me and I was amazed at the story it could tell.

You don’t have to be an analyst or statistician to interpret the data from the graph below. On July 30 the number of likes peaked at 30. On this date we held open registration for our younger players who are also our newest players.  Parents are told the best way to keep current on our baseball program is to like our Facebook page.

Corner Brook Minor Baseball Association

Our baseball association also uses Twitter. As the person responsible for the Association’s communications, including social media, I like Tweet Deck.

@CbbaCB 

What I love about Tweet Deck is its horizontal layout. I often use Twitter on my smart phone but I love the layout of Tweet Deck on my desktop.  No clicking the little icons to reveal what’s happening because the horizontal layout gives me the whole picture.

I have had my own Twitter account for several years and  have also been tweeting on behalf of our baseball association for about 18 months; however, I am still learning how to analyze the data.  I am a frequent visitor to Twitter’s support, click here to see for yourself, visit  Twitter Support.

Being able to easily analyze these two tools has helped me tremendously in my promotion of the sport of baseball. By building a following for our baseball association, I have helped contribute to the growth in our game – an 80% increase in player enrollment over 2014.

This is a skill that I can use in my professional career as an instructor. If I can help grow the number of baseball players, in particular FEMALE baseball players, then I can help increase the number of students enrolled in the programs that I teach at my college.

One of the best sources of news and updates that I like is Google Alerts. I like that I can set up as many alerts as I want on several different topics. I also love that it is delivered to my inbox. I can keep track of various forms of media such as videos, web postings, Tweets, etc.

Using Google Alerts I can easily keep track of what competitors are doing, such as our local soccer association, and even keep track of where I (or our baseball association) am in the social media sphere.  I can find conversations about both me (baseball association) and my competitors.

There are so many tools available that it is overwhelming. I like to find a few that work for me and stick to them.

 

COM0014 Blog #7 Personal Reflection

Once upon a time there was a girl named Kelly who was interested in social media. She discovered through the COM0014 course that storytelling is a great way to gain readership (customers, followers, and the like).

As a college instructor, I try to convey this message to my students as they prepare their cover letters and resumes. I tell them it needs to ‘stick’, it has to be memorable. I tell them to paint a picture and to avoid cliche phrases.

Stories are life and our life is full of stories. But opening up is difficult. Some of us could likely write stories that would bring tears to the reader’s eyes…but would we? Should we? We have to consider our audience. For me, I feel my audience in this course is potentially my classmates, but realistically it’s probably just my instructor.

So, Nelly, thanks for helping us become more aware of the pictures we paint – our depth of field, our focus.  I will likely never feel I can really open up on social media as it has a way of becoming part of permanent record. For this reason, I choose my stories carefully.  I talk about my role with youth sports instead of my work. Sometimes I write about my role in my job rather than my role as mother. But boy do I love reading about the trials and tribulations of other moms.  Maybe one day I will start a mommy blog 🙂

 

COM0014 Blog #6

Her arm tires of holding up her gloved hand. Eventually she drops her arms by her sides and drags her toe over the grass in a doodling format.  Someone yells “heads up!” She looks and snags the ball.  Parents are overheard saying “That girl should be paying attention”.  One parent looks to the mother of the girl and says “Andrew is always saying GIRLS!” 

This little girl is the only girl playing in a division of about 40 boys. Understandably, she’s losing interest. After the game her mother asks her “Erin, do you really want to play ball?”  The child shrugs her shoulders and says “I dunno.”

Mom has realized why her daughter isn’t interested. “If I tried to get some girls involved, would you still want to play?” Erin looks up, excitement in her eyes, “Oh, yes!”

I am Erin’s Mom.  And I am a volunteer with the Corner Brook Baseball Association. Girls have always been welcome to play baseball in this city that has produced some of the best ball players in Newfoundland, Becoming a Prospect. In fact, when Erin played T-ball, there were as many as 10 girls playing with her.  But for some reason, girls either leave or don’t ever play baseball. Stolen Bases: Why American Girls Don’t Play Baseball

Erin was the only girl who attended the Blue Jays Academy when they came to Corner Brook in July 2014. There were 200 players. 

Then my sister had a yard sale and this changed everything.  She made $3000 selling old furniture, tools, and other things she almost brought to the dump.  How? Her reply:  “Facebook.  It’s a magic wand.”

And the wheels started turning.

Social media is one marketing tool used to help a business (or sports club) reach its goals.  Combined with traditional formats of advertising, I believed that social media, in particular Facebook, could build it and they will come.

We were creating something new, in fact, we were making history. There has never been a female baseball division or female baseball team in the history of Corner Brook Baseball.

CBC Radio spotted us on Facebook and Twitter @CbbaCB and had Darrin, Erin, and I in for an interview about our goal of attracting a dozen girls to spring baseball with the hopes of 30 girls for our summer program. Our local newspaper was quick to follow.

Within five days of launching our Facebook page we had 100 likes.  Six weeks later, we are at 240 likes.  Analyzing our Facebook Insights has helped me tweak our page. I’m finding it is parents who use the page, not their kids (our players). Pages with the most likes are those that contain information about tryouts and dates/times of any events – tryouts, schedule, practices, etc. Our #TBT (throw back Thursday) pictures also get a lot of traffic.  I’ve found that motivational postings such as Saturday Sportsmanship Moments and Monday Moves are not getting a lot of traffic. Basically, it’s information that parents are looking forward.

Our goal – well, it’s a homerun – we had 70 girls register in our program during the summer of 2015. Proving there is room for boys and girls in the game. Here’s my boy, Colin.

 

COM0014 Blog # Kelly’s Personal Brand

Determined. Damn determined. That’s what folks would say about me. An example – last year I approached our local baseball association and said “let me champion getting girls in this sport.” My daughter was one of two girls playing at the competitive age category in our local baseball association. I sunk my teeth in and through the use of social media, primarily Facebook, and the help of some great co-volunteers we had 70 girls in two baseball divisions last year. We sent three teams to provincial playoffs and one team brought home gold. The first minor baseball gold for our association in decades.

They might also say I’m creative. I like to find new ways of doing old things. As an online instructor, my course load exploded one year and I had 85 students that I had to interview mid-semester.  As online students they weren’t all in my time zone, they weren’t all available 9-5…it was time to think creatively. I created audio files of all my interview questions. I uploaded them to a personal dropbox for each student. Students chose their interview times.  No two students had the same set of questions. They recorded their audio files and placed them in the dropbox. This was the only manageable way I could handle that many student interviews. And students loved the flexibility this allowed them.

And I’m funny.  I can make people laugh and I’m seldom intimidated by those around me, sharing humour in many situations. My husband is funny and my two kids are hilarious. Afterall, humour is the best medicine and I am seldom sick.

I’m here all week.

COM0014 Blog#5 “B2C Case Study” PEPSI

Pepsi targets 18-35 year olds. For adults ages 18-29, 89% of them use social networking sites Source: Pewinternet.org. It’s simple. Pepsi must use social media to reach their target market. And they have done it well.

“Pepsi is learning that if you want to remain relevant with this new type of consumer, you have to be where they are, you have to talk their language,” and you have to connect with them in a way that “keeps them feeling like they want to be part of your brand,” says Brian Solis, a principal analyst at the Altimeter Group.

Pepsi created a digital dashboard on their Pepsi.com page which highlighted customer comments from Pepsi’s Facebook page and Twitter accounts. “By monitoring what people say online about its products, Pepsi is able to manage user complaints in real time, before they take on a life of their own” according to Social Media Today.

Social media sites are easier to mine for data such as age, gender, interests, and reactions from customers. The more data, the greater the understanding of the target market.

Pepsi is using: SoLoMo, or Social, Local, Mobile. Pepsi can integrate social media with location-based mobile marketing. For example, if you’re on the Pepsi Facebook page, local ads for Pepsi products may appear in your sidebar.  This is an example of micro-targeting.

 

Through social media, Pepsi is engaging in inbound marketing. Pepsi’s social strategist George Smith recognizes the mutual benefit of direct consumer interaction: “It’s nice to be able to have that direct conversation with them, and not have to rely on a specific media channel to push this, or buy TV constantly to push that message,” he says.(Source: Social Media Today).

Pepsi has 34,745,860 likes as of February 15, 2016.  This is proof they have built a very successful B2C social media campaign.